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Show The Story of Garfield i 1 Here the liquid metal becomes solid as the final smelting process Is j completed at Garfield. Hot metal is being poured from the converter : and cast into cakes of blister copper.' (Editor's Note : This is the fifth of a series I of eight aricles titled "The Story of ; Garfield") The final smelter process at Garfield is that of withdrawing the molten metal from the converter and casting it into cakes for shipment ship-ment to the refinery. These cakes are huge oblong blocks, known as blister copper, weigh roughly 500 pounds each. Blister copper is a 98-99 per cent pure product but must go through another process that is called refining re-fining before the red metal is finally ready for the thousand-and-one articles arti-cles that it is made into in the fabricating plants. , Behind that cake of blister cop per is the story of much additional industry that is necessary before its casting is possible. There are two copper smelters in Utah, the one at Garfield and one at Tooele, operated by the International Smelting Smelt-ing and Refining company. While the Garfield plant treats primarily concentrates from the Utah Copper mills at Magna and Arthur, it also draws ores from virtually every western state. Some are concentrates from other milling plants while other receipts are direct di-rect smelting ores. Then for use as a flux, limesand Is brought from a deposit along the lake shore and siliceous ores also needed as flux are drawn from any western states. Owing to the size of the Garfield operation the need for fluxing ores is great and therefore a market for low-grade ore is made available due to the low smelting charge. Much ore now being treated would remain in the ground were it not for the scope of the Garfield plant. In handling the Utah Copper concentrates concen-trates alone, the Garfield plant smelts nearly one-third of the nation's na-tion's production of copper. (The sixth article of this series will be published later in these columns.) |
